Tambourine
by Qindarka
Summary: Love. Affection. Think about it. Think about how it feels. Got it? Now... imagine how Tweek feels. SLASH tweek/craig


Tweek's stomach is feeling queasy when he stumbles into the classroom--"stumbles" not "walks", because he's so clumsy that the slightest step in any direction is a guaranteed threat to his physical well-being, not to mention he's sixty percent more nervous than he usually is...which, if you knew him, you'd know is a lot. The anxiety he experiences on a _normal_ basis causes him to react in such over stimulated, relentless violent twitching, usually ending with him banging his head against something or falling to the floor.

That's why Tweek doesn't amble calmly into rooms or glide down the street or saunter across the floor. He shudders into things, he trips over himself, he fidgets his way across distances. He doesn't walk, he stumbles, because that's just him.

But what isn't him is this whole "love" thing, and that's just what he happens to be expecting on the other side of the threshold.

Now, if you add actual _reason_ to be nervous on top of his already natural paranoia, the emotion is multiplied over and over by itself, and thus the risk of injury is more likely. If that reason is just as burning and relentless as his violent twitching (perhaps worse), he's a walking deathtrap to himself. And if that reason happens to be waiting for him (or simply in the next room), it makes sense that his normal twitching would be accompanied by clammy palms, warm cheeks, and a feeling like his insides are turning.

So when he stumbles in, he's already deliriously nervous. But when he actually makes it past that first step, a foot in the hall and a foot in the door, his fidgety glance darting heavily from the floor to normal eye level, somehow... somehow he finds room to fit just an ounce more anxiety. Sixty percent more nervous than usual becomes eighty percent more nervous than usual, because when he looks up, he sees _him_ and he remembers all the reasons he's nervous in the first place, which of course only makes things worse.

Craig's talking with his friends, so he doesn't notice Tweek when he clumsily enters, but the brunette's body is at a slight angle, and his face is clearly visible to the blond in the doorway, and he's grinning and his lips are moving fast and his eyes are laughing--and it's enough, it's more than enough, it's everything, and it always is.

Tweek's gut twists more painfully into an emotion he can't even place anymore. It's more than a hundred percent times his normal nervousness, into some other emotion he can't quite comprehend. It's like....delight, he thinks. Maybe delight. It feels like delight, but more restricted, like this is as far as he can get. Like a sad sort of delight. He compares the feeling to the way the world looks after a rain shower. The sky is gray and the world is wet, but the feel of the rain is not really there. It's like a sad smile, where the desire is there, but so is the regret.

But it's enough, he thinks, because he's become so overcome with this newfound delight, that suddenly the anxiety that was there spills over like a full bucket of water, emptying over the side. It fades, if only slightly, and he supposes there's no room for anxiety when one feels as happy as he does.

So when there's a dent in his nervousness, which is more than he can expect of himself, he becomes brave. He takes another step (it's less shaky than the first), and then another (less shaky still) and then another, and somehow his feet are taking him closer and closer, because the closer he gets, he supposes, the more delighted and less nervous he might be.

But before it's too good to be true, his anxiety is back in a triumphant swoop. In one gesture, in one motion, too quick to be detectable... His hip collides with a desk. His clumsy, oafish, thin hips collide with a desk, the teacher's desk, and a sound startles him, startles him and startles everyone in the room, which is unfortunate really because "everyone in the room" includes Craig and mostly Craig. For a fleeting second something stupid in Tweek's head shoots his vision upward to where Mostly Craig is standing. Contrary to the blond's violent wishes, Mostly Craig has heard the sound (goddammit) and his own eyes dart curiously to where they lock with Tweek's, who is somehow both blanching and blushing, or at least he feels that way.

And the fear is back, rearing its bloody head as it seizes Tweek with a stringent grip, and the blond thinks 'why god why' over and over, making silent pacts and deals with higher beings, hoping to reverse whatever the hell just happened in exchange for some later time in his life where he could just get his arm ripped off by a turbine or get shot in the leg or whatever just please, why now.

Then his eyes are wandering, straining to look anywhere but up again because that would just make it worse. He focuses on finding the object that offended him, the thing that would _die_ when this was all over and he finds it, abandoned by the foot of the desk, plastic and shiny... a _tambourine_ and, with his face squeezing incredulously, the dam broke and his brain was flooded with bitter, sarcasm-ladden questions.

Where the hell was he? _The music room_? When he walked in he could have sworn this was his _English classroom_. Why the _hell_ was there a tambourine here of all places, of all locations _inside_ the room? Why was a _tambourine_ here, an extremely loud and annoying and attention-grabbing object? And why, of all things, did _this_ circumstance have to be _his_? Why the hell did his hip collide with such a _stupid_ thing to collide with? It was like the cosmic forces of the universe were working against him. He felt worse than he did before, if that was a all possible, though Tweek's tolerance for fear seemed to be breaking records today so anything was possible.

Every courageous (and foolish) step that had brought him in here was suddenly retracted because he had to get out of there, salvage what little he had, and he was inching backwards, twitching dangerously and frantically feeling around behind him so as not repeat his same mistake twice. His eyes are glued to the carpet, and he convinces himself of how nice it is compared to everything around him. But he hasn't taken two steps before his bottom connects with what feels like a desk, and he asks himself what all the desks have against him.

His eyes shoot up automatically, and he wonders why he's suddenly lost all control of them, because they lock on Craig again, who's still staring at him, though now not just staring out of the corner of his eye, but full-on facing him. His friends are looking too.

And then he speaks.

"You okay, dude?"

And the sound is unbearably heavenly and Tweek's head is reeling because he's torn between his fight-or-flight reflexes and asking Craig to speak again, his stomach turning with delight again at the very thought. He chooses the latter, his lips shaking open slightly, before a sudden thought occurs to him: Is this part of the cosmic plan? You know, the one to screw him over at every possible chance? Is this the part where he blurts out something dumb and then the ceiling crashes in on him?

"I...uhh..." he falters, shaking vigorously. Craig looks slightly concerned (as concerned as his perpetual apathy allows), and Tweek decides to risk it. "I'm... yeah..."

The ceiling is still intact and Craig suddenly cranks that delight in Tweek's stomach up a notch, because he allows the most friendly of _smiles_ to grace his lips, thrown completely in the blond's direction. He gestures with two coaxing fingers for Tweek to approach him and his friends, and the delight is so vibrant now. With shaky limbs and twitching as he does so, Tweek complies, and he's shuddering still, but he's shuddering next to Craig and in front of what looks like Clyde who's next to what looks like Token, and they both seem moderately content with him there.

"So what the hell was that all about?" Craig mumbles gently, the crooked grin still set on his face, and he moves ever so slightly, his forearm brushing Tweek as he does. "Why the fuck's there a tambourine in here?" Tweek inhales, quickly and shuddering as he does, when a sweet sort smell floods his nostrils, sweet yet with a tinge of salt and smelling like comfort and warmth and it's indescribable yet..._wonderful_, all the more so when he realizes that the scent came from Craig's sudden shifting.

"I...I...Don't know.. Might be for class or something--_rrg!" _He twitches again, amazed that he managed to get that much out before he did. The three boys laugh, then go back to what they were talking about earlier.

Delight floods his system again, and he hugs his arm as if to contain it all because it feels so _good_. He laughs when he's supposed to, he nods when spoken to, and he responds when he can, his shuddering reduced to a hum and his words less shaky because being where he is just feels so _good_.

And the delight is different now. Less restricted, more welcome. Less sad, more jubilant. Less like a rain shower, more like a spring day, giddy and overwhelming and sincere. And it bars the gates to the citadel so that the army of fear gives up for another day, and the city rejoices. It's the most safe Tweek's ever felt, the closest he's ever been.

His nervousness reduces to a meager... forty percent of what it usually is, which, if you knew him, you'd know is a lot.


End file.
